crewvscueTell them apart

Which to use

“crew” and “cue” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#2,033
“crew” frequency rank
#10,351
“cue” frequency rank
12384
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature crew cue
Definition A group of people together The name of the Latin script letter Q/q.

Where the eye mixes crew and cue

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
crew
3 ch
cue

Look-alike desk: crew vs cue

A purely visual mix-up. crew (/kɹuː/) and cue (/ˈkjuː/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12384, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

crew is recorded at frequency rank #2,033, classified as anoun, pronounced /kɹuː/. cue is at rank #10,351, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈkjuː/.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 12384, this pair ranks #481,877 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of crew vs cue

Shared letters: ce. Private to "crew": rw. Private to "cue": u.

"crew" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "cue" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • crewccrew · cerw · creww · crrew · crwe · rcew

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "crew" for "cue" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/kɹuː/ versus /ˈkjuː/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "crew" vs "cue" - which ranks higher?
"crew" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,033 in our English list, against #10,351 for "cue". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "crew" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cue" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #481,877 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "crew" and "cue" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "CGT vs cue". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #481,877 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list